Team:BNU-China
CHEAT ME
IF YOU CAN
This year, BNU-China focuses on the problem...
In industrial production, scientific research, medical treatment and other
practical fields, genetically engineered microorganisms are widely used as
worker
cells to synthesize the target products. However, when an exogenous gene is introduced into workers, they are all troubled by a common problem—genetic instability
, which can be caused by random gene mutations, horizontal gene transfer, genome rearrangement and the activities of mobile DNA elements, etc[1] . Due to the inevitable instability, workers will not stop evolving towardscheater
cells who get rid of the extra metabolic burden.
In some
natural colonies
, workers will cooperate to synthesize and secretepublic substances
[2] into the environment for the population to use, but cheaters will always emerge in the course of evolution. To maintain the balance of colony, a policing mechanism is also developed through evolution. In response to the cheaters, workers will transform intoguard
cells who can secrete a cytotoxin to selectively target cheaters.
Inspired by the wisdom of nature, BNU-China decided to
build a
universal cheater-proof platform
for protein production to detect and kill the cheaters in colony. We designed the genetic pathways inworkers and guards
respectively, allowing guards to recognize mutated cheaters and specifically eliminate them. Based on our platform, users can choose from two monitoring mechanisms, adjust killing intensity and observe the mCherry fluorescent strength as an index of the cheaters’quantity.EXPLORE MORE!
Want to take a shortcut? Explore the five areas below.
References:
[1] Darmon E, Leach DR. Bacterial genome instability. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2014 Mar;78(1):1-39. doi: 10.1128/MMBR.00035-13. PMID: 24600039; PMCID: PMC3957733.
[2] Wang M, Schaefer AL, Dandekar AA, Greenberg EP. Quorum sensing and policing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa social cheaters. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Feb 17;112(7):2187-91.
Contact
Address：19th,Xinjiekouwai St, Haidian District, Beijing, P.R.China
Postcode：100875
Email：igem_bnu_china2021@163.com
Postcode：100875
Email：igem_bnu_china2021@163.com
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